Stay Hopeful!It's easy to burn out in the face of the gargantuan hurdles between us and a sustainable society, but if we believe we are too small to be of consequence, we will become too weak to change even ourselves. Do what you can, sustain yourself, and envision the world in which you want to live.
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Since its founding in 1892 Northland College has been both a leader and a pioneer, bringing higher education to the north woods and making a bold decision to be a different kind of college by focusing our mission and liberal arts and sciences curriculum around issues of the environment and society. Today, Northland is taking that leadership a step further. While many entities focus on sustainability at the scale of the institution or the single municipality, Northland is actively engaged in regional-scale sustainability initiatives with a broad range of community partners.

Currently, these collaborations are focused on two critical and interconnected regional sustainability issues: fostering a dramatically expanded local food system; and expanding carbon neutral energy production and energy efficiency. Northland's enhanced focus in these two areas will help to build the region's self-sufficiency and resiliency in the face of climate change, political instability, and economic turmoil while simultaneously offering additional educational opportunities, a stronger connection between college and community, and a scalable and replicable model for other region's to follow. A broadened focus on energy and food will also be leveraged as a distinctive economic development driver for the region by focusing social entrepreneurship on the quadruple bottom line of people, planet, profits and place.